Approached by Sarah MacDonald before a recording session with soprano Charlie Pemberton at Newnham College, Janet and her daughter, fellow MazeMusic composer Sarah Cattley both wrote a new song for the programme. Like Janet, Sarah is a Newnham alumna, and she chose to set verses by Newnham poet Fredegond Shove. Janet set words by Khalil Gibran, ‘Said a Blade of Grass’. The video of the new works will feature in the 2020 Alumni weekend.
Janet’s online rehearsals during lockdown have been enthusiastically received by singers in her choirs. Of course these rehearsals bring inevitable frustrations for singers and conductors. The joys and benefits of actual choral singing over virtual choirs were the starting point for Janet’s new ‘pop song’ Singing in a Choir. Granta Chorale member Emma Hall had suggested Janet compose a new piece and Emma then produced the video, while Janet’s nephew Robin Wheeler mixed and produced…
Janet is very pleased to have a commission from Sarah Tenant Flowers to write a piece for the wonderful Papagena. She is exploring texts for this.
Janet is very pleased to have been commissioned to compose an anthem for Requiem to Cancer – originally scheduled for the end of September 2020, but now postponed until 2021. She is delighted to support this very worthwhile cause, following in the footsteps of previous composers Will Todd and Cecilia McDowall.
The Tealby Watson family (already regular patrons through their commissions for Time Becomes A Song and Gather the Good Days) commissioned new choral pieces from Janet for a family celebration on the island of Arran in summer 2019. Janet set wonderful Scottish poems by Gordon Jarvie and George Bruce, whose poem Voyage We to Islands is to be the title piece for Janet’s intended cycle growing from these two songs. Janet conducted a super ad…